DS SMITHJULY 2011 TO NOV 2014

FINAL POSITION:IT DIRECTOR, UK & PAN EUROPEAN INFRA SERVICES

15/04/20231

Case study 1

Brought in to the Paper Division IT organisation by the Financial Director in July 2011 to take care of an outstanding planned IT restructuring action that involved the closure of a help desk based in Devon, as part of the centralisation of IT services and help desk support to a single production site in Kent. A business case was prepared around the site closure plan and the agreed change was completed in 3 months in a joint exercise that involved the HR Director and Union representatives. A desktop change programme was kicked off at the same time to move away from Lotus Notes to Win7 to simplify support for 1000 users across 3 UK sites. An IT organisation cost saving of £300k was achieved after working through this change initiative and dealing properly with the redundancy programme for 6 staff members.

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Case study 2

Joined forces with a newly appointed UK Group IT Director in Dec 2011 to develop business strategic plans for a UK Group IT team that could support all business divisions of DS Smith (Paper, Packaging, Recycling and Plastics) as a centralised service. A combined IT operational run cost of ~ £9m was identifed by undertaking this initiaive and the overall visibility of the detail of the IT Services delivered to 6000 users was increased dramatically. Expected synergy benefits and opportunities to introduce standardised infrastructure services were realised, alongside 60 team members applying for redefined roles in a new DS Smith Group IT Services organisation structure. We used this new IT OD transformation to bring renewed focus to individual accountability and to introduce performance management methods.

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Case study 3

Introduced Project Management Office (PMO) principles into the DS Smith business in 2012 and started to work jointly with business directors on agreement of realisable business benefits before initiating IT project activity. Used this approach to put in place simple cost benefit analysis principles to support improved decision making on project priorities at Director level. Identified over 60 active projects that required close scrutiny to ensure that funding of ~ £7m on IT investment was properly allocated to projects that had a named business sponsor and a direct and measurable impact on the bottom line. Moved project portfolio planning and project controls to a cloud based service. Controlled the support, enhancement and development of live applications in line with agreed business needs and priorities, forced in change management and monthly release management over 12 months and improved IT stability.

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15/04/20234

Case study 4

Worked with the UK Finance Director to build links between business strategy, IT roadmap investment funding and causality based IT cost management principles within the IT Budget plan/review process. Created a working model for identifying how ~ £21m IT funds were split across 'run', 'build' and 'innovation. Prepared xls detail and ppt summary information to share with key stakeholders in the business to ensure that they understood the cost implications of their new demands for Innovation in IT and were able to start to see the true cost of IT as the centralised IT team costs were gathered together and explained.

15/04/20235

Case study 5

Worked as part of a post M&A IT integration team which was formed to deal with the impact of the doubling of the size of the DS Smith business and the associated transformation planning that was focused initially on quick wins that would come from rationalisation of the new IT teams and move to standardised infrastructure and application services - gained a significant business advantage in UK Recycling division as a consequence of this quick win programme by moving to a common Microsoft Nav based solution and enabling overlapping office admin activity to be identified and forecast M&A staff redundancies to be achieved.

15/04/20236

Case study 6

Stepped in to the role of UK IT Director with Pan European infra responsibilities, as a consequence of my immediate boss departing as part of IT efficiency driven restructuring of the senior IT team post M&A. Joined a cross European IT Directors team to work on strategic initiatives that were presented at Board level as outline business cases, including risk versus benefit statements, ready for assessment and approval. All approved initiatives were assigned Director level sponsorship and status, progress and risks were reviewed monthly in an IT Steering forum, something that required close attention as the organisation had doubled in size and IT complexity had increased accordingly.

15/04/20237

Case study 7

Formed a new UK IT team post M&A as business acquired new production sites and office locations. Mitigated risk of short term service disruption by undertaking a 'people first, process second, strategy with HR Director approval and guidance. Settled a team of 85 IT persons from different business/IT backgrounds into a centralised UK IT team then moved on to leading an organisation redesign programme as part of Pan European IT Directors team, achieving the target state of moving to a federal IT OD model within a 6 month period.

15/04/20238

Case study 8

Created and presented for Board approval a business case for £8m funding for desktop standardisation post initial M&A integration. Business benefits calculation was based on 40% of the PC assets being non standard in the new business landscape and opportunities for simplification of platform support and maintenance and future move to cloud based Office 365 desktop services showed a real strategic value add for the business over a 3-5 year period.

15/04/20239

Case study 9

Transitioned Pan European infra ownership to Group IT Services team control as the M&A moved from transition to service transformation. Worked with CEO and senior leads in Interoute and other infra outsource partners on the internal handover of their services to me group IT colleagues and used Vendor Management methodology to clarify best practice on engagement and ongoing vendor performance management.

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15/04/202310

Case study 10

Used Gartner advisory services on a regular basis to introduce new thinking to complex business/IT problems through their specialist consultancy 30 min review slots. Notable successes from this action included the creation of slide pack on ‘appetite for risk’ which used a 2x2 model that was shown to the Board to prompt discussion on the need (or not) for investment in IT Security to protect the business from reputational and/or unwanted access to business sensitive information. A result of taking this approach a structured investment approach to IT Security roadmap planning was signed off and regularly reviewed at Board level.

15/04/202311

Case study 11

Jointly prepared an IT strategy for 2015 with UK Packaging Directors using 'CAP' slide model to ensure that everyone signed up to reasons for change (burning platform) and the rationale for the associated planned (as part of case for change) to guarantee commitment to needed actions and gain access to funding. Received 100% support from UK business directors on the change programme but a Board level decision to further restructure the European IT Directors team was made that involved me and I left the business in Nov 2014.

15/04/202312

KIMBERLY-CLARKMAY 2008 TO JUNE 2011

FINAL POSITION:IT REGIONAL DELIVERY SERVICES MANAGER, EMEA

15/04/202313

Case study 12

Invited to join Kimberly-Clark by Global Services Delivery Director (Sydney based) who wanted me to setup a new EMEA Service Delivery team following the outsourcing of all K-C European IT resources to Tata Consulting in 2007. In the new role of IT Service Delivery Manager (EMEA) I also became a member of the European IT Steering board and focused attention on the issues and risks around infrastructure service delivery across the region that had arisen from the outsourcing transition phase. Introduced service improvements across 6000 users in 8 countries through improved governance processes that were developed jointly Tata as the primary delivery partner

15/04/202314

Case study 13

Rebuilt service delivery networks across EMEA as a result of a series of country visits to explain the transition to the Tata outsourcing contract and the needed service transformation. Worked through the new service delivery model with local contacts in Germany, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, Israel, South Africa and Bahrain. Introduced K-C central services to these local groups, facilitated this network building through a series of visits to meet and develop service delivery models with the central team in Wisconsin, USA.

15/04/202315

Case study 14

Assisted the central team with regional management in EMEA of a key supplier (AT&T) who handled a £20m per annum infrastructure network and remote access control contract for K-C, sat on the EMEA advisory council for this supplier with senior IT leads from other European businesses who were gold partners for AT&T and pushed for technical and service improvements in this forum that would benefit K-C.

15/04/202316

Case study 15

Introduced monthly IT budget forecast versus actual spend reviews with the USA based IT Finance team and the Global Infrastructure Directors office. Used this forum to track IT spend in EMEA and enable immediate agreement on cost control actions to be taken if a risk of an overspend was evident. Used this review point to also monitor global infra project roadmap plans and their potential impact on EMEA regions as they were rolled out globally, allowing the need for resource allocation, funding and user communication to be discussed in advance of the change actually impacting the region.

15/04/202317

Case study 16

Reached out to the application side of IT Service Delivery in EMEA to address shortfalls in SAP P1 response times that were impacting business bottom line due to services being offline for periods of time that were exceeded previously agreed internal SLA's. Created a critical issues P1 response working model that included the use of text messaging and Lync conference call technologies to accelerate awareness of K-C EMEA IT, K-C US IT teams and Tata. Proved the benefit of this type of virtual team rapid start-up by significantly improving speed of engagement in the P1's and reducing resolution times.

. 15/04/202318

M-REAL (NOW METSA BOARD)JAN 1999 TO MAY 2011

FINAL POSITION:ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT IT SERVICES, CP EUROPE

15/04/202319

Case study 17

Joined a Business Process Reengineering team formed by the Board to focus on business benefits to be gained from centralising functions that were delivered separately to the two UK Paper sites. Developed a number of proposals to generate cost savings and was asked by the Sales and Marketing Director to take the lead on centralising the Sales, Planning and Logistics teams. Stepped out of IT Operational role to take on this business management position and successfully combined the teams in a new office location and restructured to work with a smaller core group as a consequence of the synergies achieved.

15/04/202320

Case study 18

Moved back into IT and repeated the BPR driven SP&L team centralisation success with the two IT teams that served the UK Paper Office and Production sites. Once again, this resulted in the successful combination of the teams in a new office location, IT was then restructured to work with a smaller core group as a consequence of the synergies achieved. In this case a team of twenty was reduced to ten over a 12 month period and a number of supplier contracts were closed in areas of overlap and duplication.

15/04/202321

Case study 19

Following the improvement of the business bottom line through the BPR programme UK Paper was sold. After the acquisition completed I took responsibility for the rollout of SAP FICOMM to Finance, Purchasing and Stores. This move to a standardised core application resulted from the new owners (Metsa Serla) having an SAP rollout strategy for all of their production sites. Personal learning points on this project; this was a first for me on working as part of a Pan European team where English was the meeting language but not always the main spoken language outside of that forum and project Steering was dealt with in Helsinki. As a consequence of this clear and concise communication became a key action.

15/04/202322

Case study 20

Seconded to an Outsourcing Transition and Transformation team in 2003 by the Finnish Group IT Director and asked to take charge of the site services change programme that resulted from 120 plus IT staff moving overnight to IBM at the group IT and local IT level. Setup an internal IT Account Management team of 15 who were the only IT resources retained in the business to coordinate IT Services delivered to the production sites across Europe. Introduced governance and control processes to deal with the impact of the IT Services being delivered in full by resources working for IBM. Dealt directly with the IBM programme Director and his team on the Transition programme planning and implementation.

15/04/202323

Case study 21

Moved back to the business side of IT Service Management after the IBM outsource deal had settled in and worked on IT Strategy development for the Coated Papers Division alongside the CP Supply Chain Director. Achieved significant savings in the CP IT Budget through improved visibility and introduction of common services across DACH, UK and FR. Undertook an Executive MBA programme during this time to further increase my personal appreciation and understanding of the business challenges facing the Supply Chain team. Used this experience to publish a new Mill Execution System strategy document that was accepted but not initiated as the Metsa Serla business moved to a divestment phase in 2007.

15/04/202324

EARLIER EXPERIENCEPRIOR TO JAN 1999

VARIOUS IT OPERATIONAL ROLES

15/04/202325

Case study 22

Entered IT in the mainframe era and enjoyed a series of IT operational mainframe roles in the UK and Australia during the late 70’s and 80’s. Worked on early batch processing of Accounts and Payroll related data that was ultimately replaced by first online desktop terminal solutions. Joined a special ground breaking team in Australia in 1982 that was deploying a digital type set specialised mainframe solution in the West Australian newspapers, to replace the traditional manual process setting type for classified ads. Something that proved to me very early on that IT is an enabler of significant change, as subsequent changes in the world of newsprint in the UK Fleet Street went on to show.

15/04/202326

Case study 23

Was invited to take on a significant change project in 1991 by a visionary Finance Director at the UK Paper business that ran two production sites in the Kent area. He recognised that the reach of IT could be extended beyond the office to the shopfloor to bring increased levels of control to WIP and Finished Goods tracking and identification. Immediate returns on this investment in ‘Mill Wide Systems’ technology were evident as reductions in waste and increases in productivity resulted from the ability to generate regular production progress reports and eliminate errors an inaccuracies associated with workcentre manual record keeping. Further benefits then resulted from the rollout of barcode labelling.

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